


The Food of Love

by Corycides



Series: Miles Matheson Appreciation Week [1]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago the dream team of the classical music scene split acrimoniously amid accusations of dirty dealings. After a successful stint in Sydney, Monroe is back and has big plans to revive his old company. Maybe that will be enough to bring Matheson back from his self-imposed isolation in Chicago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Food of Love

Ignorance was a state of being that Miles had cultivated assiduously over the last five years. He didn’t have a TV, he didn’t have a computer and his mobile didn’t connect to the internet. Information still inveigled its way into his life, one way or the other. This time it was on the front cover of _Gramophone,_ the _Rolling Stone_ of classical music.

‘Monroe and Matheson Together Again!’ 

A sunny blonde with a ridiculous smile beamed from the cover, tucked under the casual drape of Bass’ arm. He was tanned, curls grown out and sun-bleached down to blonde, and looked (well) like a smug son of a bitch.

Ben was expecting his call.

‘I don’t like it either,’ his brother said. ‘That whole mess...you. I told Charlie, but she doesn’t listen to me. I’m old, I know nothing.’

‘He’ll chew her up and spit her up.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Ben sighed. ‘She’s 22, Miles, that’s gonna happen sooner or later. Least she’s got time to pick herself back up.’

Fuck. Sake.

Miles hung up and went to the piano, brushing dust off the keys with guilty fingers. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d played. Not years. Weeks. He picked out the first notes of Sally’s peacock aria from Barber’s _Hand of Bridge_ with stiff fingers, fumbling the transition to the ‘card music’. Annoyed he stopped and flexed his fingers, shaking the laziness out of them. The second try was better, almost perfect. Enough that most people would let him slide through it on his reputation.

It wouldn’t have slipped by Bass. He’d been a terror as a conductor, even the slightest burr making him run the orchestra through the section again and again. There had been times even Miles wanted to shove that baton up his ass, but then it would click. They’d get it right and it was like magic.

The thought of Bass grinning as he chased them through Senta’s ballad in _The Flying Dutchman_ made Miles fingers stumble again. He banished the nostalgia impatiently. This wasn’t about him, it wasn’t even about Bass. It was about what Sebastian Monroe, back from his Australian exile, was doing with his niece.

There was one way to find out. 

He had to call Ben to get Charlie’s number. Maybe he had spent too much time playing the hermit. Once upon...five years ago...he’d been her favorite uncle. Not that he had much competition from Rachel’s Scandinavian stoic half of the family tree.

Neglectful or not, she sounded pleased to hear from him. 

‘Uncle Miles,’ she said, voice lilting over the familiar tuneless cacophony of a warming up orchestra. Pleasure dipped into worry. ‘Are you OK? Is Dad? Did something-’

‘No. Sorry,’ he said ‘Everyone’s fine. I just saw _Gramophone.’_

The sigh reassured him that Ben had been telling the truth about warning her. ‘I’m fine, too. I know what I’m doing.’

‘He’s dangerous.’

She snorted. ‘You make him sound like a serial killer.’

‘He is, of careers.’

‘I know all the gossip,’ Charlie said. ‘I know about the cellist and the flautist and...for all I know, whoever it was played the xylophone when he worked with Brian Irvine. He’s still the best and I want to work with the best.’

‘Work with me, then.’ Miles was surprised to realise that, once he’d said it, he sorta meant it. Set up a studio here, stick Charlie up in the loft and maybe even compose a few new pieces...

‘Like that wouldn’t torpedo my career?’ Charlie protested. ‘Dumping a contract I _just_ signed because my uncle doesn’t like the _world-renowned_ conductor I’m working with?’

‘We didn’t exactly part on good terms.’

‘I know. Mom told me.’

He didn’t quite hang up her, but he didn’t give her a chance to answer his ‘goodbye’ before he killed the call. The phone went down the back of the couch, nesting in with the spare change and cat hair - where that came from, when he didn’t have a cat, was beyond him - and he spent two days working on his neglected libretto. It was only three years past the deadline.

It was the tawdriness of that climactic winter season that still gnawed at him. OK, along with every other trust-rotting piece of shit that Bass had pulled. He’d not been lying when he said Bass was a career killer. He’d ruined promising young musicians, poisoned funders against other companies, stolen artists - and Miles had known about it. Like Charlie he’d thought the grubbiness was worth it - after all it wasn’t exactly easy to keep an independant operatic company funded, even one with as many awards as theirs.

Then...

Miles liked to say - liked to _believe_ \- it had been the Russian boy’s suicide that had been the final straw. Sitting in the unforgiving silence of his hermitage - playing the penitent for both of them - he had to admit he wasn’t _sure._ Maybe he’d not been the one to pull the plug on their relationship - professional and personal - maybe that had been Bass when he found out Miles was cheating on him with Ben’s wife. Miles had just been the one to burn the whole damn thing to the ground by telling the funders about Bass’ dirty, borderline illegal tricks.

Either way, Bass had run away from the scandal to Australia and Miles had run away to here. Fuck knows what Rachel had done - he’d not really felt that was something he could ask Ben once they started talking again.

Tawdry, the lot of it.

It was a very angry libretto. Miles wasn’t sure he was even enjoying working on it. It felt more like something that would turn on him if he let it have the upper hand, all eraser-thinned paper and scrawled out notations. He did think -

‘It’s good,’ a familiar voice said. ‘I hadn’t heard you were working again.’

Miles put down the pencil and turned to look at Bass. He looked a little less glowing than his picture and he’d cropped the curls down to something that could pretend not to be riotous. Jeans. That was new. Apparently Australia had loosened him up.

‘What are you doing?’ Miles growled, standing up. ‘How the hell did you find me?’

‘Charlotte,’ Bass said, sitting down. Apparently not being welcome was no cause to stand on ceremony. ‘She seems to think you have a problem with her working with me?’

‘Do you blame me?’

Maybe there was a flicker of shame in Bass’ sharp blue eyes, maybe Miles just wanted there to be.

‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘It’s underhanded though. She’s good, very good, that’s the only reason I signed her for the season.’

‘And Rachel?’

A smile quirked the corner of Bass’ mouth. ‘She is the funders darling, you know that; she can squeeze rent and utilities out of a stone. Besides, she didn’t cheat on me.’

‘Fine,’ Miles said, spreading his hands. ‘I’m reassured. Get out.’

Bass rolled his head back on the cushions, baring the tight line of his neck, and ignored him. ‘Tell me about your new composition.’

It was too easy. Old habits died hard and there was beer in the fridge and woodwind inclusion to bicker over. Before long Bass was dangling an empty bottle and smiling crookedly. ‘It’s getting late. I should go.’

He paused expectantly. The excuse was already right there.

‘You’ve been drinking,’ Miles said roughly. ‘Stay. You can sleep on the couch.’

Of course, he didn’t. Maybe neither of them had been celibate the last five years, but they hadn’t been with each other. That was the point.

They fucked awkwardly on Miles’ narrow single bed, all laughs and sniggering. Bass mouth was hot and wet around Miles’ cock, those deft, _precise_ conductor’s hands gripping his hips. Miles laughed at Bass’ all-over tan, biting at the freckles on his shoulders. It was sweet and hot and, lying in sex-sweaty sheets with his lover tucked against him Miles felt at home in the bedroom for the first time.

Unfortunately, morning couldn’t be stopped. Miles gingerly peeled Bass’ arm from around his waist, dragged his jeans on and went out to the hammock. One leg dangled over the edge, bare toes pushing the grass to make it swing and he watched the sun rise.

That show was hours over by the time a sleepy-eyed Bass came shuffling down from the house. He made himself precariously at home on the other end of the hammock, feet propped on Miles’ thigh.

‘You know, this doesn’t change anything,’ Miles said.

‘It changes some things,’ Bass disagreed.

‘Not enough.’

Bass scratched his head, raking sleep-flattened curls up from his scalp. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have left,’ he said, voice ginger. ‘Maybe that was a mistake.’

Miles ran his thumb along the sole of Bass’ foot, and got a kick for his troubles. ‘Maybe I should have followed you.’

  
  
  



End file.
